Search party organized to find missing teens

Wakpala residents not seen since Sunday

Wakpala residents not seen since Sunday

February 14, 2009

A search party has been organized in an effort to find two missing Wakpala teens. Mariah Roundtree, 17, and Jalen Mellette, 16, have been missing since Sunday. Roundtree is five months pregnant. The search will begin from the Wakpala Public School between 9 and 10 a.m. today. Searchers will be provided a sack lunch and then soup and fry bread when the search ends about 5 p.m. Organizers are asking for volunteers and for people who can help provide horses, search dogs, air searches, four-wheel-drive pickups and all-terrain vehicles. Roundtree, a 5-foot-6 inch, 125-pound Native American/African American female, and Mellette, a 6-foot-1 inch, 130-pound Native American male, were last seen in a 2001 maroon Chevrolet Malibu. Roundtree was wearing a white South Pole hooded sweatshirt with brown and green designs, blue jeans and black with silver trim Nike Air Jordan basketball shoes. Mellette had on a white Echo sweater, blue jeans and white-and-blue Nike basketball shoes. Anyone with any information is asked to call the Mobridge Police Department at 605-845-5000, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Police Department at 701-854-7241 or the Eagle Butte Police Department at 605-964-2155. Anonymous tips are also being taken at 800-745-0734.